Scott Long's Comedy Fly-Over Country

June 25, 2011

The Rednekkid Rally

Before the show with 2 great kids of the owners of Hog Hill. Mom sent them to their rooms during my show. Thanks.

The owner of a Planet Powersports store in Coldwater, MI saw me at a show and said he would love to have me perform at a big motorcycle rally he annually holds in Northern Indiana. We came to a fair price so I said what the hell. Now the event was outdoors, which is a strange way to do comedy, as unlike music, standup needs undivided attention. I’m not going to kid you, I was a little nervous going into this event. Performing outdoors in front of a bunch of drunken bikers is great if you are a 38 Special Tribute band, but not so much if you are a comic.

On my drive to the event at Hog Hill, I realized that I had forgotten my coat. Now you don’t generally pack a coat for a gig on June 23rd, but as I discovered later, it was less than 50 degrees with the windchill, so I stopped at Kohl’s and bought a thermal shirt from the clearance rack. What I hadn’t considered was how record-breaking cool weather was not going to help the event. This was a motorcyle/camping rally, so not the type of weather to go and freeze your ass off outdoors.

As you can see from the video when I got there, it was not exactly a packed house.

Hog Hill is located in Hamilton, IN and it’s a mammoth hill which has a stage at the top of the it. The grassy area they have could easily seat 15,000 people. This made the 30 or so people that eventually showed up there seem even more sparse. Hey, but the good people of Planet Powersports and Hog Hill had paid me to put on a show so a show was going to happen. I walked up to the stage and acknowledged the truth of the situation. It’s never good when the audience feels sorry for you because they don’t think your funny, but it does help if they feel a little sorry for you because of the situation you are in. This was the case last night.

The show actually went really, considering. I tried to be as interactive as possible, despite being on a large stage which was pretty far away from the few people there that were spread out on the large area. At one point I walked off the stage and just started projecting my voice without the microphone asking questions of some of my new fans. No time to be too structured. The most memorable part to me was about midway during my show, the wind started gusting super hard and it was making some heavy feedback on the mic. I was able to cup my hand over it to take care of the sound issues but I can promise you I’ve never felt half that cold onstage. Weird sensation. I guess it was good practice for me in case I ever do a set on Letterman. (Dave is known for keeping his studio very cold.)

The audience was so friendly despite the situation, so I asked everyone to come on-stage so I could take a photo with them. I have never done this before, but I knew this was a group I would never want to forget.

This was the whole "crowd" at the show. I had them all come up on-stage during the middle of it to take a photo.

Speaking of groups I will never forget, I want to give a shout-out to my new entertainment friends, Big Caddy Daddy. They are a talented band from Auburn, Indiana who have a sexy lead singer and the best tour bus I’ve ever seen for a part-time band. Another thing unique to them as they have a guitarist who looks like Jack Black’s older brother. (see below.) I wish them all the luck in the world and hope to run into them again.

This dude looks even more like Jack Black in person. His band needs to do a DIO song!

I want to give props again to my gracious hosts from Hog Hill and Planet Powersports. They lost their ass last night but were nothing but classy in how they dealt with it. In comedy, there are nights when people get rich and there are nights like last night. It’s all part of the biz, so you have to deal with that with some perspective or you are going to be a constant mental case.

So just another day in the weird world of Scott Long’s comedy road trip. Keep checking in here to what happens next.

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3 thoughts on “The Rednekkid Rally”

Heyyy…ya made lemonade last night, Scott – outta what MOST people would’ve bitched was PURE LEMONS! Always keep it positive – glad the Powersports people were classy in the way THEY handled the situation, as well.

Completely true. I always feel guilty if a place is losing money on me, but there are times when a club is making hand over fist and they are paying me substandardly, so I guess it kind of evens out in the end.

Another amazing story in the real life adventures of Scott Long!
I love how you are in control of making this thing happen, you
do a great job of engaging the audiance to make something memorable of the night. Way to go son!